Liberty and tradition for Rome?

[SicklyAlbatross]

Hello CivFanatics, I'm wondering if those two trees could work for Rome because it's ability favors going wide, but with having a powerful capital. There's a couple of specifics I'm not sure on:

1: Does the wonder boost from Aristocracy apply to all cities? If Rome is always building buildings another high production city might be a good idea for wonders.

2: Does Oligarchy apply to all cities? A couple of times when my main army is of fighting on one side I get backstabbed on the other side of the empire, having free units everywhere would be great.

3: In BNW I sometimes end up struggling for money at the start, starting off with Tradition up to Landed Elite and Monarchy might help me find my feet before expanding. Then maybe go straight to Collective Rule and start expanding.

4: If I can't generate enough faith from starting small, could I use Liberty's great person to spawn a prophet to found a religion and pantheon at the same time? How likely is it that you'll get locked out of a religion with all f the Civs taking Piety now? If not I guess it makes more sense for Rome to take someone else's religion anyway.

5: How does the glory of Rome stack with other production bonuses like the Piety opener (half-speed for shrines), or Aesthetic's Cultural Centre (50% faster).

6: Could it be a good idea for a empire to go wide with policies too, and buy those production boosting policies, more faith from Organized Religion, cheaper roads with Trade Unions etc, but actually completing relatively few trees?

Edit:

7: If I'll be getting that free settler much later would it be a good idea to build one before then? Or would having one super capital be good enough until expanding with Collective Rule?

8: Use Legalism for a free monument in the capital? Or build one before hand to get the free amphitheatre?

 

[peddroelm]

1. yes
2. yes
3. depends on difficulty - on the higher ones all land around your capital will be settled by AIs before you can get so many policies
4. as far as I know GP from liberty finisher can establish religion even without Parthenon (although spamming a few cities with liberty and getting a few shrines might be the better way to go about getting a religion)
5. again as far as I know the "double" production for religious buildings/factories is a straight +100% ..So as long as other percent bonuses are in play (workshop//glory of Rome/Windmill) it will never actually double production
Ex :125% production towards shrines & temples if you have one in capital and opened piety
6.always an option

 

[Autokrator48]

You always want to at least finish either Tradition or Liberty, not doing so in the early game might screw you up for the endgame. And who doesn't like free early aqueducts or a GP?

 

[SicklyAlbatross]

Thanks for the clarification Peddroelm.

You always want to at least finish either Tradition or Liberty, not doing so in the early game might screw you up for the endgame. And who doesn't like free early aqueducts or a GP?

Hmm, not sure which I'd want to finish first. I just tried a quick game doing roughly what I wrote out, it worked fairly well but I think waiting for Collective Rule was a mistake, at least some point before I'd have to build a settler. The Liberty branch seems to loose a lot of it's charm if you don't do it straight away, where as a lot of Tradition stays useful over time, Monarchy gets better with population, Legalism scales to your tech, and Oligarchy will provide huge savings when your empire gets massive.

Edit: The more I think about it the less I like the idea of completing both Liberty and Tradition, there's too many policies that are better the earlier you can get them. I think I'll try finishing Liberty then going wide with policies, there's some really interesting low level policies that could help a wide empire.

 

[Falconiano]

Sickly, it's unlikely to be a good idea to finish both.
You could open Aestethics for a major GP production buff for instance, or get 2 points in Patronage to help with CS grabbing, or again 2pts in Honor for that combat bonus buff.
If you go wide you don't really need Tradition, if you stay small you might want the free GP but other policies are a waste in comparison of what you would get.

 

[SicklyAlbatross]

Sickly, it's unlikely to be a good idea to finish both.
You could open Aestethics for a major GP production buff for instance, or get 2 points in Patronage to help with CS grabbing, or again 2pts in Honor for that combat bonus buff.
If you go wide you don't really need Tradition, if you stay small you might want the free GP but other policies are a waste in comparison of what you would get.

Yeah that's pretty much how it went. I completed Liberty first, then I went Piety for organized religion and my faith per turn went through the roof, Trade Unions from Commerce saved me 30 gpt on roads and Oligarchy saved me another 30 gpt. I wanted to get the cheaper culture buildings from Aesthetics, but I'm thinking some policies from Rationalism might be for the best as I'm hovering between 2nd and 3rd place for techs, and the only person with enough money for research agreements is a super friendly Genghis, the tech leader (???!).